In May, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III, who lives in Pottsville but whose main chambers are in Harrisburg, ruled on a lawsuit filed four years ago by about 30 Pennsylvania funeral directors.

Jones threw out decades-old state regulations governing Pennsylvania funeral homes, which he said held down competition while substantially boosting costs, gave the state Legislature until August to revise the law.

The funeral directors board was given 90 days to draw up new regulations that respond to his ruling.

Many of the funeral directors in Schuylkill County have conflicting opinions about Jones' ruling.

One of the directors, Wayne Hamilton, supervisor of Hamilton Funeral Home Inc., Orwigsburg, said that if the new regulations becoming a reality, it may make it easier for non-licensed people to engage in the funeral business.

"My outlook on this thing is I worked hard to get my license, as every funeral director does," Hamilton said. "You've got to have your associate degree from college, then you've got to have your mortuary science degree, which in most cases is like a four-year degree."

Hamilton said bigger corporations are coming in and buying up funeral homes, and they're looking at cutting back on licensed people, such as having non-licensed people selling funeral merchandise.

"My answer to that is what recourse does the general public have to come back at somebody telling lies or embezzling money?" Hamilton said. "A licensed person is either going to be reprimanded or fined, and if it's a serious offense, they can pull his license and a man can't practice anymore or be in the funeral business. A hairdresser has to be licensed, a barber has to be licensed, so why wouldn't a funeral director have to be licensed?"

Hamilton said one of the main purposes of a funeral home and funeral director is to protect the health of the general public, because they properly prepare bodies for burial.

Another law that could be changed - and which Hamilton doesn't agree with - is the allowance of serving food in a funeral home.

"My job as a funeral director is not to be a food service supplier," he said. "My job is to supply a family with a funeral service that's dignified and affordable and along the lines of what the family wants to bury their deceased. That's what I'm here for."

He said that allowing funeral directors to serve food, rather than the family going to a church or catering hall after the service, would take away from the other local businesses.

Hamilton does agree with Jones, however, that a lot of the things in the funeral law are antiquated and could be redone.

One example is how there have been strict laws on naming funeral homes, making it difficult to change a name. Hamilton said that if he wanted the name of his funeral home to be "Orwigsburg Funeral Home," he couldn't make that change.

Schuylkill County Prothonotary David J. Dutcavich, a licensed funeral director who owns and operates Dutcavich Funeral Home in Minersville, also had a mixed reaction to Jones' ruling.

On the one hand, Dutcavich acknowledged the need for some changes in the law.

"Obviously, the funeral director law is 60 years old. I see Judge Jones' point," Dutcavich said. "A lot of the rules are somewhat archaic."

However, Dutcavich has concerns about not having any law, saying he and other funeral directors are accustomed to dealing with grief-stricken people.

"There have to be some regulations," he said. "He made it a lot easier for non-licensed people to engage in the funeral business."

Ernie Heffner, York, a second-generation Pennsylvania funeral director and the lead plaintiff in the case against the board, thinks the changes are going be more beneficial to consumers.

Heffner is the president of Best Life Tributes Funeral & Cremation Care, which owns 11 funeral homes in Pennsylvania and one in New York, including Schlitzer-Allen-Pugh Funeral Home Inc., Pottsville, since 1989.

He said they are all owned by he and his wife and they are not a big corporation.

"Consumers are going to end up having more options than they've had in the past, a broader range of services available," he said.

Heffner added that funeral directors would not have to do anything different than the way they've always done it, but for those who want to add services, they'd be free to do that.

In regard to serving food, Heffner said that if somebody is serving hospitality food, it wouldn't be taking away from restaurants and churches.

He said that until this court ruling, there were only five states that prohibited food: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

"Some are opposed to it because they're afraid they may have to clean up crumbs," Heffner said. "They don't have to offer that."

Heffner also said that selling funeral merchandise doesn't have anything to do with being a funeral director, as people can buy caskets from Costco, Amazon, cemeteries and even Wal-Mart, which offers 48 different caskets.

If the changes take place, Heffner said that it will allow for more transparency, especially for publicly traded companies that have been in the state for years.

Another law Heffner said doesn't make sense is that state regulations bar non-licensed people from owning funeral homes, but permit non-licensed widows and widowers of licensed funeral directors to own them.

He said that for the most part, their funeral homes are in his wife's name.

"I think there are probably too many licensees in the commonwealth that haven't read the ruling in its entirety," Heffner said. "They (consumers) will find some firms providing more choices and options than they have in the past and most other changes will be unnoticeable to consumers."

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